Music Education: Supporting Perfectionists in their Violin Learning
Perfectionism - and a noisy mind - are conditions that seem to affect a lot of musicians, particularly violinists.
That being the case, I'm not sure if I was looking for help with my teaching or with my own mental state when I attended a session called "Supporting Perfectionists in the Private Studio" at the American String Teachers Association National Conference in Atlanta earlier this spring.
The session was taught by northern Virginia-based violin teacher (and longtime Violinist.com writer) Claire Allen and by Oregon-based teacher, podcaster and author Christine Goodner.
Claire Allen and Christine Goodner, at their session on "Supporting Perfectionists in their Violin Learning" at the 2025 ASTA National Conference in Atlanta.
What exactly is a perfectionist, and how do you approach a person with this mindset, whether it's your student, your child, or yourself?
"As classical musicians, we strive for excellence and perfection," Goodner said. For a perfectionist, the gap between reality and perfection (their idea of how things should be) - is always glaringly apparent. That gap can cause anxiety and even paralysis.
So what should a perfectionist do? Should one stop striving for excellence and perfection, in order to preserve mental well-being? Goodner and Allen argued that this is not actually the solution.
"There is no need to lower our standards," Goodner said. "But it's important to treat that 'gap' with compassion, not with punishment."
She added that "you probably won't stop being a perfectionist," but you can learn to live and work with that gap between the real and the ideal.
Psychology actually gives unhealthy perfectionism a name: "maladaptive perfectionism." Some of the marks of this include extreme people-pleasing, a preoccupation with past mistakes, and an excessive fear of failure. By contrast, "adaptive perfectionism" harnesses those striving instincts but tempers expectations with self-compassion and flexibility, viewing mistakes as learning opportunities.
So how do you walk that line? How can you tell if a student's (or your own) perfectionism is no longer a source of inspiration but instead has become "maladaptive"? And what do you do about it?
There are a few tell-tale signs of perfectionism gone amok: an intense frustration with learning, a low tolerance for taking baby steps toward a goal, an obsession with comparison or rankings, fear of failure, a constant need for reassurance, Allen said. Perfectionists may also try to avoid feedback, so they don't have to hear about shortcomings. They may even self-sabotage. They also may use self-criticism for motivation.
A teacher who has a student exhibiting these qualities will need to handle the situation with care. A student might be trying to be so perfect that no one can say anything bad to them - so how do you give that person feedback? Allen said that during the lesson, it's important to allow a student to play something all the way through, before offering any feedback. It's also possible to "depersonalize" language so that it doesn't sound like a personal criticism. For example, "the tone was scratchy" sounds less personal than "your tone was scratchy."
And here is some good advice for working with anyone, but especially with a perfectionist: focus on one improvement at a time; don't overwhelm a student with a long list of improvements needed. And in focusing on that one improvement, be sure that they have a do-able and specific strategy for addressing the problem, before moving on. And as they make improvements, praise their attitude and efforts over praising the results. (Comments on the results can be more analytical).
If a student pushes back, in the form of throwing a tantrum, getting silly or freezing up, take a beat to put down the instrument, drink some water, move the body or take a deep breath.
A perfectionist often has a loud "inner critic," who may be delivering a constant monologue of negative feedback. Allen asked everyone present, "Do you talk to yourself in your head?" Everyone present acknowledged doing so, but she had news for us: "Not everyone does!"
Ponder this: if you have your own inner critic, and you are dealing with a student or child with his or her own inner critic, then there are two inner critics messing with the situation!
Allen said that it can help to separate yourself from your inner critic. You can even give your inner critic a name - something other than your own name. This makes it easier to disengage - "Oh that's just Audrey talking again, don't pay attention to her!"
A teacher can help a self-critical student by talking them through their feelings of inadequacy, rather than rejecting those kinds of statements. For example, if the student says, "That was terrible!" then that student probably will not accept "No, it was great!" in response. It can help to acknowledge their dismay, and then - perhaps counterintuitively - to dive deeper into it. "What did exactly you feel was terrible about it?" Have them describe it in as much detail as possible, and then also have them describe how they want it to be. Then ask them if they know how to do that and help them make the changes they want. If you can walk a perfectionist through these kinds of scenarios many times, they can learn to respond this way themselves: by exploring the "perfection gap" in a more analytical and detached way, instead of personally identifying with it.
It's also important to help parents who are working with a perfectionist child. Musician parents can find it particularly difficult to hold back criticism, but it's important to allow children to make their own mistakes and to accept this as part of the learning process.
It is possible for two things to be true at the same time: that a student has made progress, and that there is room for improvement. For the perfectionist, it is especially important to celebrate progress, harness mistakes for learning and teach self-compassion and acceptance.
You might also like:
- How To Be A Productive Perfectionist
- Teaching Violin with Diverse Repertoire: ASTA Session with Claire Allen
- Music Education: Unlocking the Strengths of Neurodivergent Learners
- Past and Present ASTA Conference Coverage
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Replies
"It's also important to help parents who are working with a perfectionist child". I don't believe any child was born a perfectionist. One used to hear stories of teachers who drilled their pupils like army recruits but mostly today I suspect perfectionism is instilled in children by their parents.
As so often before, Laurie Niles, you've written well about a difficult and nuanced subject. Thanks for all the tips about how to balance self-criticism with motivation and addressing problems in chunks small enough to actually improve.
Wonderful discussion and comments by all. One psychological aspect of the perfection problem is of course self-talk. This is a totally normal human characteristic.
A good deal of the time in everyone's life (and not only musicians, but other professionals of every kind one can think of) our ordinary everyday self-talk is negative.
Who of us hasn't said to ourselves something self-negative over the smallest issues? such as "Why did I say that?"...or "I'm an idiot."
The good news about self-talk is that we each have 100% control over the words we choose to say to ourselves. Consider religion - A good deal of the prayer we recite is in the form of self-talk.
The point is that sometimes it can be very helpful to handle this perfection issue by creating a brief, positive, and believable self-talk statement when we experience the inevitable discouragement of recognizing that we are imperfect.
And sometimes (dare I say it) humor can be helpful. For example, "I have never, ever made a mistake. I thought I did once, but I was wrong."
So, consider adding a brief, positive self-talk thought to the problem.
I hope that helps.
I have mentioned this many times before on violinist.com, but I witnessed an extreme example of failure and perfection at a concert I attended many, many decades ago.
David Oistrakh appeared with an orchestra in Chicago (not the Chicago Symphony) and played the Prokofiev 1st Concerto. The audience was enthusiastic. The first movement was played brilliantly and wonderfully.
However, in that technically difficult second movement, Oistrakh got off to a bad start, missed many notes, was often out of tune, and made so many mistakes that it was truly startling. At the end of the movement, there were no noticeable audience or orchestra player reactions.
The third movement was played with Oistrakh's usual technical and emotional brilliance. In spite of the mess of the second movement, the audience gave him a wonderful applause.
He and the conductor walked offstage, and after a few minutes they both walked back onstage to the audience applause, and then all was quiet as Oistrakh tuned up.
The conductor said something to the orchestra, they all re-tuned, and then at the signal of the conductor, they replayed that second movement. This time, Oistrakh's performance was beyond perfection - technically, musically, and emotionally - and with an energy and excitement that I shall never forget. The audience literally went wild with applause and excitement.
It seems to me that on that occasion, thanks to a remarkable instance of perfection as a reaction to failure, a truly remarkable and meaningful musical performance enhanced the lives of everybody in that concert hall.
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April 24, 2025 at 12:42 AM · One of the greatest things about music is that perfection will never be achieved by any of us. As you advance as a musician, your ears become more discriminating, your standards rise and you start to be bothered by the tiniest technical flaws.
I think we need to celebrate this and not let it become a negative thing. It's okay for students to expect a lot of themselves, it's okay for them to be never really fully satisfied, but it's not okay for them to be negative about it. It's important for teachers to talk about music as a journey that never ends, for anyone. Tell that story about Pablo Casals who was asked why he was still practicing Bach suites in his 90s, and he answered something to the effect of: because I'm still trying to figure them out.
We have to celebrate that no matter how accomplished we are, with the greatest music there is always going to be mystery we can't completely crack and technical challenges we will never 100% meet. Every reading of a piece, every performance, is different. Variations (and yes, imperfections) are part of what makes us human and what makes music this amazing living, breathing thing. Perfection should really not be the goal.